Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
The remanufactured engine computer market is a niche market that the owner, Bob, had gotten into in the 1990s. His family was a local auto repair shop so he had started to see a trend in auto computers as car technology evolved.
All automobiles use computers, and often there are dozens of engine computers in each car that control specific functions to make the car run. When one module is inoperable so is the car. It's a must have item for anyone who drives. His goal was to build a large inventory of products to capture the largest audience possible.
In 2015, his daughter moved back to Pennsylvania from Jersey City to learn her father's business and add value to the company. Her first goal has been to overhaul the website and get all products in inventory launched onto the web. We source our products via a buy guide we send to engine computer sellers (core sellers) monthly. Our inventory is also purchased from auto recyclers who have access to a limitless supply of engine computers.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Our first sale came via our online store getting rankings in Google. The market is somewhat competitive and having the new Shopify based website allowed us to build a gorgeous site, focus on SEO, add in Pinnable photos and shareable URLs. Our traffic comes from link building on forums and advertising on other niche websites dedicated to our market and products.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
We don't have to use a lot of apps for our business model. The product is searchable on its own by part number. We do have Yotpo as our review system and get some really awesome feedback from customers this way. We have a warehouse facility which packages and manages our fulfillment.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
We launched our website with basic descriptions of our products and were getting so-so rankings. We relaunched all our descriptions with robust html tags and added in more keywords to give our products a competitive edge. Since the relaunch of our product descriptions we've seen sales increase. We recommend gaining valuable kjnowledge, implementing a strategy and execution best practices to achieve success. Constantly learning and testing ideas to generate traffic to a new site is essential.